


Stay Here Now

by Starlingthefool



Category: Heroes - Fandom
Genre: Heroes, Matt/Mo, m3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-07
Updated: 2010-03-07
Packaged: 2017-10-07 18:55:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/68152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starlingthefool/pseuds/Starlingthefool
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>These things can't happen overnight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stay Here Now

It took them nearly a year to fall in love.

There were reasons for the near glacial pace. Mohinder spent months jetting all over the world, giving lectures or tracking down errant superhumans. Matt was recovering from a broken heart and four bullet wounds, and it's hard to say which hurt more. There were the mundane, necessary tasks of laundry and cooking and unclogging the bathtub. There were jobs to perform and promises to keep. Meanwhile, new villains popped up and old ones reappeared. After Sylar and Maury and Adam, not to mention the fiascoes (Mohinder's phrase) and clusterfucks (Matt's expression) of Niki and Nathan and Peter and Noah and Elle, it was a wonder they had the energy to do more than love Molly and be civil to each other.

No matter what the poets say, saving lives – and occasionally the world – always takes precedence over love.

But unknown to either of them, there was a kind of alchemy at work. Fate threw them together, tightened the nooses around both of their necks; applied pressure in the form of catastrophes, disasters that came so fast and close together that they tripped over their shoelaces in their race to wreak havoc.

Nothing and no one could have come out unchanged to the other side. Under pressure such as this, the bonds between atoms are split, or strengthened into a crystalline form. Diamonds emerge from lumps of black coal.

And so the civility evolved into something else. Became comfort, friendship, became reliance, and then turned to something larger and enthralling, exciting and utterly terrifying. Such change can't happen overnight.

***

Matt felt it first. In the last weeks of that summer, after the terrible spring when Nathan was shot and the world fell apart again, he noticed the change for the first time.

In the dog days of August, New York suffered its annual heat wave. The fifth floor walk-up of Mohinder's apartment was unbearably hot. Almost every window was thrown open, and fans sat in most of the sills.

The old and creaking air conditioner was in the living room. For whatever reason, the cool air stayed mostly in there and didn't reach Mohinder's or Molly's rooms. Because of that, Matt had been having company in the living room that week.

Matt woke in the middle of the night, from a dream he wasn't sure was his. The television, that had been playing some old movie before he fell asleep, now showed nothing but snow and static. Molly had fallen asleep in the fort she constructed behind the couch, a castle of blankets and purloined pillows. Mohinder had fallen asleep on the couch next to him, and had somehow ended up on Matt's shoulder. His head was heavy on Matt's arm.

Matt smiled, shook his shoulder a little, trying to jostle him awake. "Mohinder," he whispered.

The other man slept on, oblivious. Matt considered his options. He could wake Mohinder and send him off to bed. (But he was cranky as hell when woken up.) Or he could just curl back up and go to sleep on the other side of the couch. (But sleeping on the sofa was uncomfortable enough without sharing it.)

The easiest thing was to forfeit the couch and air conditioner to Mohinder, and take the stuffy, overheated bedroom for himself. He carefully wrapped an arm around Mohinder and pushed him gently off his shoulder. Gravity helped him, and Mohinder fell back onto the other side of the couch, sighing softly.

Matt stood and stretched quickly, then turned off the television. That done, he grabbed a sheet from the pile Molly had used to build her fort and tossed it over Mohinder. As he bent down to pull it over the other man's bare feet – an unconsciously tender gesture that he didn't think about until later – he saw that Mohinder's eyes were open and focused on him.

There wasn't much light in the room. What was there was dim, muted yellow light from the street lamps outside, filtered by the curtains. Mostly, the room was blanketed in shadows.

But somehow, with a disparate clarity, Matt could see the delicate spray of eyelashes against Mohinder's cheeks, the rough stubble above the soft, parted lips. The man's eyes, usually so sharp and alert, were soft and faraway. They held Matt, as tight as Fate's hand transforming a mess of molecules into something clear and unyielding.

_Stay,_ he heard. The thought was half asleep, an unfocused whisper. He doubted Mohinder ws even aware of what he was thinking. Still, Matt's breath caught in his throat. The moment spun out into eons.

Then those eyes shut, and the breathing deepened. He was asleep.

Matt left the room and lay down on a bed that smelled like Mohinder: aftershave and cinnamon, coffee and weird herbal shampoo, and other things that he couldn't identify and wished he could stop thinking about.

Heart pounding, he didn't sleep for a long time.

***

Mohinder noticed the change in Matt before he noticed the change in himself. He puzzled over the new and different looks, the blushes, the sudden stuttering in his friend's speech. It took him longer to notice his own tension when Matt was in the room, his own fascination with the man's shoulders and hands that could hardly be called platonic.

So it goes with scientists. Dispassionate observation was a habit, just as much as introspection. Mohinder, however, was (un)lucky enough to develop both these habits early on, so it didn't take him long to see the metaphorical elephant in the room for what it was.

But revelation wasn't enough when he didn't know what to do with it. Mohinder's strength was in research and theory, and less so in application. He could gather data, understand the forces behind it, but this final step had always been hardest for him. People forget that science utilizes creativity as much as art, and creating something new is always difficult and frustrating. So much of it is just fumbling in the dark, hoping for illumination to suddenly strike.

For them, this illumination took its own sweet time. Such things are never hurried, rarely punctual. (And maybe that denial comes back into play here. Just a little. Only the fearlessly mad go out of their way to pursue such things headlong.)

Since time doesn't stop for most men, life went on. There was still work to be done, friends in need of help, strangers to save. School started again, and Molly needed new clothes and supplies. Despite the distractions, that troubling tension between them, the feeling of some solid and electrifying space between their bodies, continued. Both of them wondered if this was it; if the rest of their time together was to be spent waiting for the other to act, until something happened to finally tear their small, self-made family apart.

It was autumn now. October in New York; you realize why so many poets write hymns to this city in this season. The trees in Prospect Park were brilliant in their fall colors. The air turned crisp; cool winds whipped down the streets and sent leaves and litter scurrying before it.

Mohinder worked late in his lab one night, and stumbled into the apartment at close to midnight. The first thing he saw after he dumped his bag and jacket in the closet was Matt. He was slouching on the couch, arms crossed, staring blankly at the dark television.

"Matt?" Mohinder said. He spoke softly, not wanting to wake Molly.

"Hey," the other man said, voice gruff and low.

"Why are you still–"

"Had a bad day at work. Can't sleep."

Mohinder blinked, then walked towards the couch. He sat down cautiously on the other side of the sofa. He was hyper aware of the space between their bodies and the tension that it held, the terrifying potential, but didn't comment on it. Inaction is habit-forming as well. "Do you want to talk about it?" he asked instead.

Matt sighed and shook his head. "It was just… people. Being people. Suicide, murder. Violence. The usual. You'd think that all the shit this past year, everything that's happened, it would give me some perspective. But it still…"

He glanced over at Mohinder and then shrugged, a jerky up-and-down of his shoulders. "I don't know what I'm saying. It was a bad day, is all."

Mohinder's hand moved by its own volition. He certainly couldn't remember giving it permission to do such a wildly daring and stupid thing as touch Matt's shoulder, violate that volatile space between their bodies.

He watched, fascinated, as the other man shuts his eyes and inhaled deeply at the contact. Mohinder swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry. "I'm sorry. I wish I knew what to say."

"You… you don't have to say anything," Matt said. And then he relaxed into the touch.

For whatever reason, Mohinder panicked. He'd faced down serial killers, human bombs, deadly viruses. He'd looked his own death in the eye down the barrel of a gun.

This? Was too much. Or too soon. Too risky; even if the situation now was uncomfortable, it was at least bearable. Doing something stupid, like following through on feelings that could be transitory (or worse, the opposite), might be catastrophic. Mohinder stood up, some excuse ready at his lips. But Matt caught his hand, and whatever words he'd called up withered in the back of his mouth.

Matt looked like he was having his own trouble getting words out. His mouth opened and shut. Mohinder watched his Adam's apple bob as he swallowed. Finally, a word was forced out, in a husky and pained whisper.

"Stay." Another swallow, and Matt's gaze was burning on Mohinder's skin. "Please."

Carefully, as if his bones were dynamite and his blood nitroglycerin, Mohinder sat back on the couch. This was it, that moment he'd been waiting for with equal parts dread and longing.

For the life of him, he couldn't think of a single thing to say.

"Neither can I," Matt said. His hand, the large square palm and long fingers, tightened around Mohinder's, thumb rubbing against a knuckle.

The gravity between them grew; Mohinder couldn't stop himself from leaning forward. Matt's mouth was open, his breath burning hot on Mohinder's cheek. Any moment, Mohinder thought, both of them were going to combust.

So be it, then. Mohinder took a chance, closing the last inch of space between them. He pressed his lips to Matt's, felt the other man's momentary surprise in stiffened shoulders and jagged inhalation. Mohinder pulled back then, positive he'd made a mistake and ready to apologize and flee, but Matt yanked him back onto the couch. Warm fingers curled around the base of his skull, thumb stroking over the occipital bone and brushing against his curls, as he was pulled into another kiss. Matt made some noise, some small and satisfied hum against Mohinder's lips.

Then they were kissing in earnest, and Matt was leaning back and pulling Mohinder atop him. He put his hand on Mohinder's chest, just resting it there over his heart. His pulse raced beneath it, heart pounding as if it wanted to leap out of his chest.

Mohinder ran his thumbs down the line of Matt's jaw, and kissed him with his eyes open. He was still terrified, but this had been building slowly for the last year, in piecemeal looks and casual touches. He felt an urgency, but held himself in check. He'd earned the right to luxuriate this, now that it was actually happening. Even if part of him wanted to tear off all the clothes that separated their skin and fuck him.

Matt's eyes popped open; he must have caught that last thought.

"Do you want--?"

"Not yet," Mohinder answered quickly. "Soon, maybe. But can we just stay like this for now?"

Matt nodded, looking as nervous as Mohinder felt. This was all very new and strange, and at the same time, familiar. This was Matt beneath him, the same man he'd lived and eaten and bickered with for much of the last year. This was Matt, running his hands down Mohinder's sides, the look on his face saying he didn't quite believe this was happening.

Mohinder leaned back, straddling Matt's wide hips. He ran his hands up the other man's chest, and then down his arms, squeezing lightly at the biceps. It was a motion meant to soothe both of them. Matt shut his eyes, fingers wrapping around Mohinder's thighs as he continued the long, slow strokes.

"I've been thinking about this a lot," Mohinder admitted.

Matt didn't open his eyes. "I know. Me too."

Mohinder's hands moved down Matt's chest, palms sweeping downwards from sternum to belly, and then back up again. He traced the muscles and bones with his fingers, the smooth expanse of the pectorals, the sharp ridge of the clavicle. He touched the four hard knots of flesh that were, he assumed, Matt's scars. "Why didn't you do anything?"

"I don't know. I was… I don't know," he repeated.

Fair enough. This had been the one time where he knew just as much about a situation as Matt, and he still didn't act. He couldn't blame his cowardice on not knowing. He moved his hands over Matt's arms – the deltoids, biceps, the taut tendons in his wrist. He could feel Matt's pulse, so close to the skin. He felt a wave of amazement at the feeling of it under his fingers; the simple knowledge that they were both alive, that they'd both managed, against all odds, to meet in this moment.

"Open your eyes," he told Matt. It was important, he wanted Matt to see him, to look him in the eyes. Mohinder wasn't sure if it was an attack of self-consciousness or what, only that he needed that contact. Needed Matt here with him, in this dim room, on this cramped couch.

When the eyelashes blinked open, the intimacy, the knowing in the gaze was a shock that Mohinder felt in his gut. He bent over and kissed Matt again, because he could. The permission to be able to do what he'd been fantasizing about was incredible.

"Oh, god. Bedroom?" Matt whispered, breaking the kiss after a long, heated moment. "Molly might—"

"Yes. Now, I think."

He stumbled off the couch, almost tripping over his own feet in his haste, and made for the bedroom as quickly as he could.

Matt was right behind him, and he kicked the door closed. Before either of them could worry about the sound waking Molly, Matt's mouth was on him, pressing hot kisses onto any skin he could reach. Mohinder flailed, knocked off balance, then grabbed Matt around the waist. The urgency that he had ignored before was back, and Mohinder quickly peeled off his own shirt and before helping Matt out of his.

They fell on the bed in a tangle of limbs. Matt's presence was all encompassing – the skin of his stomach, soft brush of chest hair, the taste of his mouth, the real and solid weight of him.

What the hell had they been waiting for?

Matt's hands slipped down the waistband of his pants, teasing the button and zipper open. Mohinder was amazed at his dexterity. His hands were shaking too much to do more than grasp at the larger man in his overwhelming desire. Fear and need were grabbing hold of him with equal strength, and it was all he could do to lay back and let Matt slip his pants and underwear off the rest of the way. Good god, he couldn't even remember the last time another person saw him naked, but it surely wasn't like this; Matt's heated gaze raked over him, taking all of him in. Their position from ten minutes ago was reversed, with Mohinder pinned beneath the other's gaze and warm touch. Matt ran his hands up Mohinder's legs, moving from his Achilles' tendon to his calves, knees to his thighs, tracing veins and muscles and bone beneath the skin.

Mohinder bit his lip. He didn't want to resort to begging, but if Matt didn't bloody well touch his cock-

Matt laughed. Mohinder was confused for a moment, then embarrassed, but then there was the feeling of Matt's hands enfolding him. Mohinder's head fell back, eyes falling closed. He pulled a pillow out from underneath him, throwing it over his head to muffle the shout that wanted to tear out of his throat. He would have been embarrassed at how turned on he was right now, if he weren't so... well. Turned on. It tended to upstage everything else.

Matt chuckled again, and Mohinder felt him as the other man leaned forward. "If you're that concerned about staying quiet, I can think of better things to do with your mouth." Warm breath tickled across his skin.

Mohinder promptly threw off the pillow and grabbed Matt, pulling him tight against his chest and kissing him as hard as he could.

"Oh my god," Matt said. He was making needy little thrusts against Mohinder's thigh, still fondling his dick in his other hand. "Oh, fuck, Mohinder, I want-"

Mohinder tugged at the waistband of the track pants that Matt was still wearing. "Get these off."

Matt pulled away, but hesitated with his hands at his waistband. Mohinder ran a hand over the pale expanse of his naked back, and saw that Matt was breathing hard. Harder than he should be, anyway. Mohinder sat up.

"What is it? What's wrong?"

"God. This is embarrassing. I think I'm having an attack of nerves."

Mohinder blinked, and a long overdue thought struck to him. "Matt. Have you been with a man before?"

Matt let out a haggard exhale. "Not in a long time. I think I was, shit, twenty? Something like that. And we didn't... I never-"

Mohinder sat up, wrapping an arm around Matt's chest. "We don't have to do anything," he said, even though he was thinking _But I really, really want to_. He knew Matt had heard the stray thought when he stiffened in Mohinder's arms. Mohinder winced. "Sorry," he muttered.

Matt laughed again, and turned his face for another kiss. "Don't be. I want to too, it's just-" He couldn't seem to find the words he wanted, and his frustration was evident. Mohinder pulled him back into another kiss, teasing his mouth open and running his tongue along Matt's bottom lip. He trailed a hand down Matt's chest, brushing against against a nipple. Matt moaned softly, and Mohinder did it again, rubbing it softly between his fingers until it was hard. He scooted forward until he was flush against Matt's back, and started moving his mouth over the soft skin at Matt's throat.

"I want you," Mohinder said. "But I can wait. We've waited this long, anyway."

"No, no," Matt said, twisting in his arms to face him. He planted an arm on either side of Mohinder and leaned in to kiss him. "Hell no. I don't want to wait anymore. I'll explode or something. I'm just freaking out because-"

"Because it's sex with a man?"

"Because it's sex with you." He ran a hand down Mohinder's jaw, looking nervous and embarrassed and terribly sincere. "I don't want to screw this up, just because I don't know what I'm doing and it's been so long."

Mohinder reached out and brushed their lips together. "I have an idea."

Matt raised an eyebrow. "Yeah? Does it involve orgasms in the near future?"

"That's certainly my hope." He reached around Matt to the bedside table, pulling out the drawer. He fished out a small bottle of lotion, wishing he'd had the foresight to buy some lube. Precognition would have come in handy for things like this. He turned and pushed Matt gently onto his back, and kissed him as he tugged on the track pants Matt was still wearing. "Off. Please."

Matt smiled, if a little nervously, and lifted his hips to let Mohinder slip them off. Mohinder tossed them into the corner with the rest of their clothing, and lay down next to Matt. He uncapped the bottle of hand lotion and spilled some into his palms, then rubbed them briskly to warm it. He kissed Matt, and slid one of his slippery hands across Matt's cock at the same time. The man jerked in his arms, breath hitching in unsteadily.

"Easy," Mohinder whispered.

"Shut up," Matt said. Mohinder thought he might be blushing.

Mohinder pulled Matt's hand towards him, laying a kiss on his palm. Then he poured some of the lotion into Matt's hand and pulled it toward himself. The cold liquid was a shock as it touched his thigh, but the heat of Matt's palm overwhelmed the feeling quickly. He moved Matt's hand to his inner thighs, biting his lips as Matt's thumb brushed against his sac. Seeing his reaction, Matt did it again, on purpose this time, moving a finger teasingly back towards his perineum.

Mohinder took a deep breath. It was taking all of his willpower not to just pull that hand back onto his cock and start thrusting into it.

"Easy," Matt whispered. He was grinning.

"Shut up," Mohinder grumbled. But he was smiling too. He took hold of Matt's wrist and firmly moved it down to his thighs, spreading his legs a little to give him easier access. Matt, seeming to get the idea of what he wanted, smoothed the lotion across the soft skin, "accidentally" brushing Mohinder's balls a few times more.

Finally, Mohinder pulled his hand away and turned over. He grabbed Matt's hips and guided the other man until his cock lay nestled in his thighs.

Matt gasped as Mohinder squeezed his thighs a little. "Wow," he breathed. "Holy shit. That feels amazing."

"Thank you," Mohinder said smugly. "You know, the Greeks used to do this-"

He shut up as Matt reached a hand around his hip and encircled his dick, pulling on it. "So not the time for a history lesson," Matt said. Then he gently started moving, thrusting and pulling in some kind of unfathomable rhythm.

"Right," Mohinder said. It was the last intelligent thing out of his mouth for a while. Everything began to fall away: the terrifying events of the past year, the upcoming anniversary of his father's death, the sound of his mother's voice when she called - resentful and resigned to losing her son to his new life in America. Worries about Molly, fear about Sylar, his ambivalence about still working for the Company; this new and terrifying thing with Matt. All of it was fading in the face of the ancient rhythms and feelings of sex: Matt thrusting into the narrow space between his legs, his breath against Mohinder's neck, teeth brushing the sensitive space behind his ear. Matt's skin under his fingers, the warm curve of a hip, the play of muscles as Matt moved against him.

He could feel the gravity of everything else trying to tug him back into his mind, but Matt's hand pulled sharply on his cock at the same time as his teeth bit down on a tendon in Mohinder's neck, and he was wrenched free from their pull. Everything narrowed down to a bright streak of electric light, shooting down his spine as he came with a hoarse shout, muffled into a pillow. Matt followed him, thrusting into the warm, tight space of Mohinder's thighs. Mohinder felt a spasm, Matt tensing up behind him, then wetness on his legs as Matt spilled out onto his skin.

The only sound for a long moment was the harshness of their breathing, and distant traffic. The world had started spinning again, for better or worse.

"Damn," Matt said.

"Yeah."

"I mean... yeah. Wow."

There wasn't any real response Mohinder could make to that, so he kissed him, twisting his neck around to reach Matt's lips.

***

They dragged themselves from bed to shower and change the sheets. Mohinder was shocked when he realized it was only just after one thirty. His entire world had changed in less than two hours. That was probably setting a record.

He said as much to Matt, and felt slightly put off when the other man snorted.

"Two hours? Are you kidding me?"

"Check the clock," Mohinder replied.

"Not what I meant," Matt said. "You think this all happened in just one night? This has been building for months."

Then he tells Mohinder about the night months ago, the heat wave when Matt first had an inkling that something had changed, was changing. Mohinder doesn't remember it, but then, he was half-asleep. Maybe he's been that way for a long time.

He's only now just waking up.


End file.
